As a brilliant and socially aware satire Fox network’s The Simpsons has effectively portrayed religious beliefs of modern Americans. In recent times the Simpsons have been considered by the media to be a religious show and the show as noted Ryan Beiler, the editor/ writer of the prominent Christian magazine the Sojourners, is “a mirror which reflect the religious life and practices of modern day Christians”. The spirituality of the Simpsons, like the spirituality of the modern American Christians that they are modeled after, is superficial. Like real Americans the Simpsons pray excessively, but it is “often done in the form of pleading or bargaining” (Dart). The superficiality of the Simpsons’ and Americans’ faith is demonstrated through the way Bart, Homer, and Marge viewed God and their belief in prayer as the ultimate solution. Each character in the Simpson household only prays to God in order to get what they wanted and their prayers are often done in the through the form of pleading and bargaining.The Simpsons shows that Americans’ spirituality is superficial at most, and God is often used as convenient mean to magically solve all problems.
In the Simpsons universe, every character to a certain extent is religious. But like real people their spirituality is superficial for they only turn to God in times of need. Bart Simpsons, one of the major characters of the show, like many Americans part on treat religion respectfully and pray genuinely when he is in danger. Bart is well known for his disrespectfulness toward religion is often at times seemed to be genuinely praying. But at these times Bart is only praying respectfully due to a personal crisis and he hopes that his prayer to God would somehow solve his problem. This is most evident in the episode titled “Bart Sell His Soul.” During this episode Bart demonstrated both his disrespectful behaviors toward God and his sudden reliance upon God to bail him out of trouble when he is in danger. At the very...